


Stew

by Eleanor Green (eldestmuse)



Category: Lithmeria: The Endless Siege
Genre: Gen, aspalaria, eating crow, ebon tower, nekata plantation, rice paddy, whip
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-29
Updated: 2012-07-29
Packaged: 2017-11-11 00:52:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 515
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/472652
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eldestmuse/pseuds/Eleanor%20Green
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A brief character study showing what a day in the life of a worker at Nekata Plantation in Aspalaria might be like.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stew

**Author's Note:**

> Lithmeria is a multi-user dungeon revolving around a globe-spanning conflict between the Accord of Teladir and the Aspalarian Sovereignty. It is scheduled to release on October 12, 2012.

It was a hard life, but a simple one. Kirisi hated every minute of it, but there was nothing to be done. She was only a human, she thought bitterly; descended from nomadic stock and without the benefits evolution had bestowed upon her betters.  
  
She wasn’t smart enough for training at the Tower, even if she’d been strong enough to escape from the overseer’s whip and travel cross-country without funds. She wasn’t lucky enough to have had an ancestor chosen for hybridization—she was doomed to the short, brutal life of an indentured farmer, just like her mother and her mother’s mother before her.  
  
A _crack_ sounded as the tip of a leather chord broke the sound barrier right beside her ear, and Kirisi flinched as the overseer bellowed, “Quit yer daydreaming and get back to work, girl!”  
  
She lowered her head submissively, the cone-like hat she wore shielding her eyes from him and the sun alike. Her feet sunk ankle-high into the muck of the field as she re-applied her shovel to the task of planting rice. The paddy had been drained of the river-water that usually irrigated it, but the work was still grueling. Briefly, she envied the older women who had but to lead the water buffalo in lines to till the unplanted ground.  
  
They worked until the sun hung low over the river, its golden rays cooled to twilight hues. As someone rang the church bell to signal dinnertime and the beginning of the evening, Kirisi slumped with relief, her muscles aching. It took all of her strength to lift the shovel to her shoulder and walk through the muddy fields and up the gravel road toward the little village where she and her fellow laborers lived.  
  
The group of women walked past the winnowing barn that stood near where the road split off toward the main house and the chapel, and Kirisi gazed down the long line of oaks at the enormous building that was the home of the Nekata family, whose plantation she worked. Jealousy flared in her breast, and she glared hatefully at the small log cabin that was hers to share with her parents, grandmother, and three siblings.  
  
Her mother preceded her inside. The older woman removed her scarf and hat to let her black hair hang free. “What is there for dinner?” she asked Kirisi’s grandmother.  
  
The elderly woman stood from her rocking chair and poked at the stewpot that she had set on the table at the sound of the evening bell. “There was a crow in the paddy today,” she said.  
  
“So?”  
  
“It made the overseer angry when it perched on a scarecrow’s arm.”  
  
Kirisi smiled at the story and wished she had seen it. How inspiring it would have been to witness such fearlessness in the face of something designed to intimidate the creature! She wished she were brave enough to defy the strictures dictating _her_ place in the world.  
  
Kirisi’s mother hung her hat on a hook by the door. “What does that have to do with dinner?”  
  
“I made crow stew.”


End file.
